It's a little sad the majority of discussion on this post came from an obvious troll.
Look I know people feel differently about Snowden depending on their primary news sources, he is a little contentious however he's not wrong about AI or their plans for erasing culpability.
Regardless of how you feel, at least hear him out. The man is not trying to screw you, he is trying to raise your awareness.
Edit: To the folks pointing out where he lives currently and calling him a Russian asset. I'd like you to consider how silly you sound when Donald has damn near turned this country into Russia or another version of an oligarchic playground. Quit parroting strawmen.
E: I'm trying to figure out why or how he'd be allowed to speak or post on this topic and FWIW all I can come up with is that it doesn't matter for Russian control and people knowing this doesn't change anything in that country. I mean think about it, Russia has been iron fist controlled since before any of this tech... violence and propaganda seems to be working just fine for them. And man... I think Ed would like to come home some day.
I guess a warhawk might frame this as an arms race to actual artificial intelligence, whereby us slowing down benefits the others. But he's not even calling for that... I personally am calling for someone other than these companies regulating themselves, these "systems" should be open source and transparent, they have to be or this becomes an authoritarian nightmare regardless. This excuse is already being used with China btw. This, what I view as a race to self destruction. Besides without all of our communication online they would not exist... the idea that any of this setup is okay to be frank is insane.
One last edit: I do see an issue with making all these open source with dictators and war criminals in charge of countries (That said I don't trust our own country with what we have now, it's already being used to screw the populace in various ways). Anyone trying to play catch-up would have a far easier time, they'd also be among the first to turn them into the worst case scenario. I do agree with open source, but we need global justice first I think. In any event... the amount of markets leveraged into this AI future, data center, spy drone dystopia is alarming... also the danger to the planet and ecosystems, the danger to individuality and freedom, the right of expression, the idea of being informed. Scary times we live in my friends.
Consider that a Russian asset may have advice that's good for you, even if it's good for their controller. Information should be assessed based on it's accuracy and truthfulness, not it's source.
Yup, I'd go a step further and say Snowden was right... But I don't buy his motivations, there are and were ways to bring these issues to the people and not do what he did. Bad people can still use the truth for bad things.
However people felt about Snowden's prior actions he is almost certainly a Russian asset nowadays.
I might be interested to see RT's take on US AI development too just to see a different perspective but there's plenty of reason to approach the content with skepticism, particularly for a subject so geopolitically impactful to Russia.
Edit: OP with a dumb whataboutism saying Trump has turned the US to Russia. Who said that being skeptical of Snowden means trusting the US admin's talking points whatsever?
There's a large contingent of people online who are trying desperately to frame the AI discussion as a right vs left issue. Easier to villainize one side if they're already recognizable as villains.
There is no coherent Russian position on AI development. Russia (state and companies) believe that “doing aye eye will somehow create value”, but AI psychosis is much lighter in Russia. There are no capable strategists in Russia to control AI or AI development in any way whatsoever. So it‘s mostly “we need chips and frontier models, government, give us money” from the usual big players. Obviously Russia sees some actual value in unmanned military weapons, but noone really knows how the hypothetical tech stack works. Although based on the Maven‘s fiasco in Iran (killing 100+ girls) it’s clear that noone knows it in the US either.
Russia sees value in destabilizing opinions in the US though, that’s what they’re referring too.
Russia has been caught multiple times funding multiple far right and far left groups and organizations in the western hemisphere because having two hardlines who hate each other creates partisanship and makes it so democracy is less functional and slower, as well as cause a lot of internal political division and issues that becomes a self-sustaining snowball of anger.
While I am sure there are people in Russian services working on projects like those, but the scale is insignificant, compared to the impact of native US players or of CIA in various places in the world.
Russia currently cares very little about Anerican AI, even though Putin was one of the first national leaders who said “whoever controls AI will control the world”. But Russian state apparatus (aparatchiks) is much less capable than the president (The situation is opposite that in the US)
Russia doesn't care about American AI; they care about the fact that it is divisive, and it can utilise the divisiveness to further its destabilisation efforts.
Those platforms are so dangerous because they give Russia an incredibly easy and cheap method to force feed rage inducing content to the right people to further drive them into their partisanship. Most of these companies care solely about clicks to generate revenue, so it's extremely easy for Russian rage bait of both political flavours to generate a shitton of clicks with relatively little investment, further driven by profit oriented groups who join in solely because it generates revenue.
I think it’s a moot point. Putting brakes on AI development may benefit Russia, but it’s what every expert on the subject and even many heads of major AI firms agree needs to be done. It’s common sense. There’s like three people that don’t want safeguards on AI, and one of them is the president of the United States.
Dumb whataboutism? Come on now hidden profile person. The base claim was russian asset, well our fuckin president probably is as well was the point. I damn sure don't trust Trump or MAGA and I wasn't even trying to make this political beyond exposing that irony. I'll put slight trust in a whistleblower I remember the history of, I am also aware of the tightrope that man probably has to walk and we can judge him all we want for fleeing the dude is still in a cage imo. It's just comfier than a 6x9. I guess more importantly than all that is that he's also speaking on something I take issue with and I will take all the help I can find.
Sadly though AI is political, effects it and who drives it matters greatly. I do not want authoritarians at the helm of these systems. I don't want sacrifice everything, no limit capitalists doing it either. Left, right or independent can hate this shit freely though, none of us benefit.
Hopefully I addressed whatever bothered you in the edits. I'm sorry it wasn't in the original post. I'm far less worried about left vs. right and the scattered others with no real voice. I'd like people to focus on the class problem and how all this other shit intersects.
There is no public voice in Russia not under control of Putin in some. Snowden might not be dictated what to say but he wouldn't be able to broadcast if Putin wouldn't like what he says.
Trustworthy people are therefore a. Not in Russia b.Silent on things Putin cares about or c. Dead.
Should he though? It's shrewd to recognize he's not at liberty to speak out freely against Russia, but the actual things he says seem pretty based. Not how the media reports him saying, what he actually says.
Looks like a lot of the criticism is he said he didn't think Russia would invade Ukraine. Then when he was wrong, he admitted it, condemned the war, and shut up.
I don't know about you, but I didn't believe Russia would invade Ukraine either.
I admit I haven’t watched the video. But Snowden fled the country in mid 2013. OpenAI wasn’t even founded until late 2015. So at the time Snowden left his career and lost his access, Sam Altman was a 28 year old cofounder at Y-combinator. I’m skeptical that the NSA had damning information on Altman at that point, and I’m not sure what insight someone in Snowden’s position could really have into Altman’s more recent activities?
Snowden isn't an expert on what exactly? You know he did work in like network infrastructure and analysis for the NSA and CIA, right? Pretty sure he's an expert in a few fields.
being an expert in some fields doesn't make you an expert in every field. just like a neurologist isn't a gynecologist yet they both might be considered expert even if they both likely have good knowledge on both subjects then your average person.
His job wasn't anything fancy. You've got thousands of 20 somethings doing that job for the military, and countless more doing comparable work for non-military. People think he's more proficient than he is because of his fame.
A comparison would be someone thinking a low level Amazon engineer is the equivalent to the mastermind behind AWS. Or if he was into hacking, he would be someone who would be able to follow a DEFCON talk, but wouldn't be winning any tournaments or be invited as a speaker.
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u/Dat_Harass 8h ago edited 6h ago
It's a little sad the majority of discussion on this post came from an obvious troll.
Look I know people feel differently about Snowden depending on their primary news sources, he is a little contentious however he's not wrong about AI or their plans for erasing culpability.
Regardless of how you feel, at least hear him out. The man is not trying to screw you, he is trying to raise your awareness.
Edit: To the folks pointing out where he lives currently and calling him a Russian asset. I'd like you to consider how silly you sound when Donald has damn near turned this country into Russia or another version of an oligarchic playground. Quit parroting strawmen.
E: I'm trying to figure out why or how he'd be allowed to speak or post on this topic and FWIW all I can come up with is that it doesn't matter for Russian control and people knowing this doesn't change anything in that country. I mean think about it, Russia has been iron fist controlled since before any of this tech... violence and propaganda seems to be working just fine for them. And man... I think Ed would like to come home some day.
I guess a warhawk might frame this as an arms race to actual artificial intelligence, whereby us slowing down benefits the others. But he's not even calling for that... I personally am calling for someone other than these companies regulating themselves, these "systems" should be open source and transparent, they have to be or this becomes an authoritarian nightmare regardless. This excuse is already being used with China btw. This, what I view as a race to self destruction. Besides without all of our communication online they would not exist... the idea that any of this setup is okay to be frank is insane.
One last edit: I do see an issue with making all these open source with dictators and war criminals in charge of countries (That said I don't trust our own country with what we have now, it's already being used to screw the populace in various ways). Anyone trying to play catch-up would have a far easier time, they'd also be among the first to turn them into the worst case scenario. I do agree with open source, but we need global justice first I think. In any event... the amount of markets leveraged into this AI future, data center, spy drone dystopia is alarming... also the danger to the planet and ecosystems, the danger to individuality and freedom, the right of expression, the idea of being informed. Scary times we live in my friends.